Tongues of Fire

by Peter Abrahams

  Armbrister sighed. “Why do you want to go after this man Rehv?” He put “go after” in quotes. “He’s a waiter. Someone paid him some money to see that Abu Fahoum sat at a certain table. Maybe he did it for nothing. Maybe he didn’t even do it at all. But, accepting for the sake of discussion that he did, that’s all you’ve got.” He looked at the file with something like pity. “Small beer.” Armbrister was fond of British expressions.

  “What about the maître d’?”

  Armbrister began rubbing his eyes very hard, as though in a frenzy of disbelief. Krebs knew that his contact lenses were bothering him. “Maybe someone poisoned him as you say,” Armbrister replied, mauling his eyes. “Nothing here says your man was involved.”

  “He’s not my man.”

  Armbrister stopped rubbing and lowered his hands. His eyes had swollen to red bulbs: Looking at them made Krebs’s own eyes start to water. “Let’s not argue, Krebs,” Armbrister said. He made it sound like a threat. “Whether or not he had anything to do with the poisoning, the fact remains he is a very little fish. A minnow. You know we don’t want minnows.”

  “I don’t think he’s a minnow.”

  Armbrister blinked at the file. “Why not?”

  Krebs leaned forward. “First of all, he faced down Abu Fahoum at the restaurant.”

  Armbrister laughed the laugh of a man-about-town. “They learn that from day one at waiter’s school.”

  Krebs hated that laugh. He gulped his anger back down. “He’s smart—a professor of Arabic.”

  “Assistant.”

  “And he has military experience.”

  “In the reserve.”

  Krebs rose and walked across the room. On the wall hung a photograph of Armbrister playing croquet with his family. He walked back and stood in front of the desk. He felt better looking down at Armbrister. “This is what I think happened,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. “Rehv is a high-ranking terrorist. He works in a fancy restaurant, not a bad cover and a useful place to be. He looks at the reservation list and sees Abu Fahoum’s name. He knows who he is. He sets him up. It fails only because he didn’t have time to round up better people. Abu Fahoum is smart—he knows what Rehv is. He sends his goon to kill him. Abu Fahoum waits. He doesn’t know what’s going on. When I talk to him he’s very evasive. Why? Why shouldn’t he be helpful?”

  “Did you mention my name?” Armbrister asked.

  Krebs ignored him. “The reason he’s not helpful is that he’s waiting to hear from his goon. But the goon disappears. Rehv doesn’t. Before Abu Fahoum can decide what to do next, Rehv gets him too.”

  Armbrister pulled the top off the silver ball and dumped the damp tea leaves on a sheet of paper. “You haven’t got any evidence,” he said, poking about in the tea leaves as if he might find some there.

  Krebs leaned over him. “What would you say if I told you Rehv paid a little visit to Vermont last week?”

  Armbrister looked up, his eyes very red. “Are you telling me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why wasn’t it in the report?”

  “Because I just got the information this morning.” They looked at each other for a moment: Both men knew it wasn’t the whole truth.

  Armbrister poked at the tea leaves with his index finger. “It still doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “We have nothing at all to connect Vermont with any of the terrorists.”

  “Not yet.”

  Armbrister pushed the tea leaves into a little pile. Then, taking, care not to spill, he rolled the paper into a ball and dropped it in a wastebasket. “What do you want?”

  “Twenty-four-hour surveillance, three-man team.”

  “For five days. No more.”

  “And something else.”

  “What?”

  “He sees a psychiatrist. I’d like a look at her files.”

  “No.”

  “Very discreet.”

  Armbrister made an odd, puckering face, as though he had just tasted sour milk. “No,” he said again.

  It was a dark, moonless night. Krebs had dressed discreetly in a heavy black sweater, blue jeans, worn tennis shoes dyed black, and black leather gloves. He walked silently along the quiet street, the kind of street in Greenwich Village where the three- and four-story town houses are renovated every ten years. In a few windows he saw the cold flickering blue light of the last late movie; but the windows of the house he wanted were dark.

  Krebs mounted the steps of the cement stoop and stood before the door. He had three keys in his pocket. The first one fit the lock. He turned it, heard the tumblers shift, and pushed. The door remained firmly closed, bolted from the inside. Krebs put the key back in his pocket and went down to the sidewalk. He knelt in front of the basement window: It was small, with four dirty panes, and seemed to be hinged at the top. He pressed it gently with his fingertips to discover whether the latch was closed. It was. He sat down on the sidewalk and put his heels against the lower part of the frame. He pushed hard. There was a sharp splitting sound, almost a squeak, as screws were torn from wood. It sent little waves of adrenaline down his arms and legs. He looked around. No lights went on in any of the windows; nobody screamed. Krebs placed his hands on the edge of the frame, twisted around, and lowered himself into the basement.

  He crouched on the cold cement floor and listened. Two machines were humming: a refrigerator somewhere above and a hot water heater nearby. A car honked far away. Krebs took a small flashlight from his pocket and examined the remains of the latch. He saw a narrow bolt that would fit into a curved piece of metal attached to the wall. He found this piece on the floor, and the two screws that had held it. Using his multibladed Swiss Army knife, he screwed it back into the wall, changing its position slightly to hide the cracks in the wood. He closed the window and shut off the flashlight.

  He stood in the basement waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. In a few moments he could see the washer and the dryer, and a row of five or six old toilets against one wall. Then he made out a little bicycle with fat tires, a hula hoop in the corner, and the stairs along the side wall. He had excellent night vision: It had been noted during his training. He started toward the stairs very quietly. Something soft fell across his nose and mouth. He jumped back, switching on the flashlight. Three pairs of silk panties hung on a line in front of his face. He turned off the flashlight and went up the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs Krebs came to a closed door. He could hear the refrigerator on the other side. He put his hand on the knob and pulled and twisted at the same time, to prevent the catch from scraping. The door opened silently.

  Krebs looked into the kitchen. It was brighter than he had expected: A weak white light spread through the center of the room, leaving the edges in shadow. The light came from the refrigerator on the far side of the room. It was open. A heavy naked woman stood in front of it, her back to him. She was bending forward to get something from one of the lower shelves.

  Very slowly Krebs pulled the door toward him, not quite closing it. He kept his hand on the knob and did not move.

  He heard the refrigerator door close. The woman’s bare feet moved across the tile floor. A plate clicked on a ceramic counter. A drawer opened, rattling its metallic contents. The drawer closed. Silence. The feet approached, very close, and stopped. He heard a sound he didn’t recognize immediately: rhythmic, moist, sucking. He realized she was chewing. The chewing stopped. He heard a faint wet rubbing that might have been her tongue licking her lips. The feet went away. They climbed the stairs. They pressed on a floor above. A bedspring squeaked.

  Krebs stood still. He looked down at the green numbers on his wristwatch. Three-thirty. He didn’t move again until four o’clock.

  When the green point of the hand covered the green dot of twelve he gently opened the door and entered the kitchen. He walked quietly through an arched doorway and into the front hall. Faint street light penetrated the windows and pushed the darkness into the corners. Off one side of
the hall was the living room; he could see the low soft shadows of couches and chairs. On the other side was the dining room, most of its space taken by a long table. Behind him the stairs led to the second floor. He climbed them one at a time, keeping his feet to the outside edge.

  At the top Krebs found himself in another hall, smaller than the first, and darker. He looked around, trying to make his eyes absorb every particle of light. He saw three doors, one open and two shut.

  He took slow even steps toward the open door, his tennis shoes silent on the thick carpet. He peered inside and saw nothing. The curtains must be closed, he thought. He raised the flashlight and flicked the switch on and off, very fast. In the moment that the beam shot across the room he glimpsed the large bed, and the single lump rising in the middle. He stared into blackness where the lump had been. Nothing moved. He listened very hard but heard nothing, not even the sound of breathing. For some reason he suddenly thought of Alice. He didn’t know why.

  He backed into the hall and turned to the first closed door. He opened it very carefully, the way he had opened the door at the top of the basement stairs. He didn’t need the flashlight. He felt the cool air against his face and quietly closed the door. Bathroom.

  Krebs went to the third door, opened it, and looked in. Something bubbled in a dark corner. He flashed his beam: an aquarium. A goldfish faced him, pressing its lips against the glass.

  He closed the switch. A little light came through two rectangular windows and advanced partway across the room. At first he thought it was empty; then he saw large dark shapes on the floor. He touched one with his toe: a pillow. The office must be on the third floor, he thought. He turned to go, but he didn’t take a step. He looked again at the dark shapes on the floor. Something about them made him think that the room was set aside for work, what sort of work he didn’t know. He shone his light around the walls. There was a closet in one corner.

  He crossed the floor and opened it. Inside stood a tall wooden filing cabinet. Krebs went to the door that led to the hall, closed it softly, and returned to the filing cabinet. He ran the little circle of light over the labels on the drawers, and pulled out the one marked “Q to S.” His fingers hurried through the files. Rafferty, Rainey, Rapaport, Rather, Reed, Rehv.

  He opened Rehv’s file. Inside was a single sheet of paper, covered in handwriting. He knelt, laid it carefully on the floor, and took the little camera from his pocket. He held it twelve inches from the sheet of paper and pressed the button. There was a flash that seemed very bright. Krebs listened, and heard nothing but the refrigerator, very faint. He put the paper in the file, put the file in the drawer, and closed it. He closed the door, put the camera and the flashlight in his pockets, and left the room.

  Softly, trying to slow down, he walked past the dark bedroom, down the stairs, and into the hall. He thought of leaving by the front door but remembered the bolt he would have to leave open. Neither could he close the latch of the basement window, but that might never be noticed. He went down the basement stairs and across the hard cement floor to the window. He pulled it open, placed his hands on the sidewalk, and lifted himself through.

  Hot white light bored into his wide-open pupils.

  “Freeze,” said a voice.

  Krebs froze.

  “Hands up high. Turn around real slow. Against the wall.”

  Hard hands ran quickly over his body. They took his Swiss Army knife, flashlight, camera, and wallet. While they were doing that he realized what it was about Alice that he had tried to remember while he stared in the darkness at the lump in the big bed: It was the tension in her body when she pretended to be asleep.

  He heard the front door open. “Police?” said a woman. She sounded very frightened.

  “That’s right, lady,” said the voice behind him. “It’s all over.”

  “Is that him?”

  “Yup.”

  “I don’t want to see him.” The door closed.

  There were two of them. They handcuffed him and pushed him into the back seat of the patrol car. One went into the house to talk to the woman. The other sat in the front seat.

  “Better look at the wallet,” Krebs said to him through the steel screen.

  “Better shut your fuckin’ mouth,” the cop said without turning his head.

  They sat there waiting, Krebs looking at the back of the cop’s head, the cop at nothing in particular. After a while the cop took Krebs’s wallet off the dashboard and opened it. He saw what Krebs wanted him to see.

  “You could call McCulloch at Midtown South,” Krebs said. “He knows me.”

  “I’ll bet a lot of cops know you,” the cop said, but he didn’t sound sure.

  The other cop returned. The first one opened the wallet and showed him the yellow card inside. They called McCulloch.

  Darkness had begun to give up the eastern part of the sky by the time McCulloch arrived. His cold was worse. His nose was red, and he had a wad of Kleenex tucked into the sleeve of his duffle coat, like a maiden aunt. He looked at Krebs and said nothing.

  McCulloch went to his own car and talked on the radio for a few minutes. He got out of the car and returned. “Suspect escaped custody on the way to the station,” he said to the cop behind the wheel. He turned, got into his car, and drove away, without looking at Krebs again.

  The other cop opened the back door and unlocked the handcuffs. Krebs got out rubbing his wrists. They gave him his wallet, but they kept the Swiss Army knife, the flashlight, and the camera. Krebs walked away. He felt their eyes on his back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Everyone was rich. They broke around Isaac Rehv in waves of fur and high-priced scent. They carried packages wrapped in thick paper of red and green and gold, and tied with ribbons and bows: a luxurious caravan bearing away the riches of the West. The wealth they shared did not seem to make them any friendlier toward each other. They still walked as fast as they could, eyes straight ahead, mouths shut. The only mingling went on over their heads where their breath condensed in the cold air and came together in silver vapor that hovered above. Rehv supposed that must be the Christmas spirit.

  He stepped out of the flow of people and stopped in the lee of a phone booth. He took out his wallet, the wallet with the faded Q.K. stamped on one corner, and counted his money. He had three twenty-dollar bills, four tens, a five, and nine ones. In his front pockets he found a quarter, a nickel, and three pennies. One hundred and fourteen dollars and thirty-three cents. That was it. No bank account, no stocks, no bonds, no real estate: the man who would do it all himself. He thought of Quentin Katz’s twenty-five-grand-a-year job. He needed more. Sooner.

  Rehv looked up and saw a tall thin Santa Claus watching him across the sidewalk. His hard little eyes were locked on Rehv’s wallet. He folded it, put it away, and continued walking to work. Santa Claus shook his bell at him.

  La Basquaise had been closed for a week. When Rehv arrived he found that all the tables had been moved and their numbers changed.

  “Pascal is very superstitious,” Armande explained. He picked up a dessert knife, examined his reflection, and shook his head. “It’s so ridiculous,” he said: “People shoot each other in Italian restaurants.” He allowed a pained expression to cross his handsome face, as though some horrifying gaffe had been committed. He held up the dessert knife and looked into it again. The pain went away.

  “Stomach all better?” Rehv asked.

  Armande gripped the back of a chair, his knuckles white. “It was ghastly,” he said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse. “I vomited. I defecated. Sometimes both at once, if you understand what I mean. It is better left unsaid. Both at once.” He sighed deeply, then looked at Rehv and narrowed his eyes. “I will never eat pieds et paquets again in my life.”

  “But you’re better now?”

  “Physically, yes,” Armande replied. “We went to Walt Disney World for a few days. Pascal likes to go on the rides.”

  The first customers appeared in the doorway.
“Okay,” Armande said, “let’s make some money.” He went off to greet them like an amiable wine baron welcoming old friends for dinner. He looked fine. His tan was deeper, his yellow hair yellower, his blue eyes bluer. He hadn’t said anything about Manolo.

  It was a good night for making money. People were hungrier and thirstier than usual: Hours of frenetic shopping and lugging heavy presents in the cold made them that way. They wanted steamed lobster and quenelles des crevettes and galantine de volaille à la gelée. They wanted Burgundy, and lots of it.

  Two men in Rehv’s section ordered steak tartare. Women never seemed to order it: It was a dish for men who were men. For Rehv it meant a performance at their tables with egg yolks and capers and Worcestershire sauce. At the first table conversation ceased and everyone watched him as if he were about to do some magical trick; at the second table the man who was a man wanted to direct preparations: “More capers. Another egg yolk. Haven’t you got HP?” While Rehv was ruining the dish according to these specifications he felt a brief hush fall over the dining room. He looked up and saw Armande leading a famous screen actress and two companions to a table in his section. The hush was very brief, and no one stared, except out of the corner of the eye; not because they valued her privacy, but because they were important too. La Basquaise was that kind of place.

  The actress had eaten there before, but never at one of Rehv’s tables. Armande gave her a banquette in a shallow alcove designed like a balcony overlooking rolling meadows. She was wearing a pearl-colored coat that almost touched the floor, made from the earthly remains of numerous chinchillas, and a matching hat which served as a monument to two or three more. She would have been warm on the retreat from Moscow, Rehv thought, although she probably had not come from far away: Armande had said once that she always stayed at the hotel across the street when she came to New York.

  Rehv scooped the last of the steak tartare onto a plate and set it before the man who knew how he liked it. “Bon appétit,” he said. The man picked up his fork and jabbed it into the midst of the raw meat. Rehv turned and moved toward the banquette. He heard a woman say, “How can you eat that?” The man answered, “It’s perfect,” with his mouth full.